The story
- Russian · derived fromсамое́д
- English todaySamoyed
From Russian самое́д (samojéd), probably from Sami *saam-edne (“land of the people”); compare Finnish Suomi (“Finn”). In the course of borrowing, the word was folk-etymologically reinterpreted as сам (sam, “self, own”) + есть, ед- (jestʹ, jed-, “eat”), "self-eater."
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.